If you were there last year in the wee hours of the evening at Chickie Wah Wah, you know this show is going to be fun and make you want to dance!  Papa Mali will bring his crucial band Shantytown Underground to Chickie Wah Wah to rock steady late into the night of Thursday May 1st.
 
If you are unfamiliar, let me tell you that Papa Mali knows reggae.  He fronted his band the Killer Bees who were the first American band to play Reggae Sunsplash in 1987.  Papa was given his nickname by Burning Spear’s longtime drummer Nelson Miller when he was on tour with the Burning Band 1985.  That is what we call roots! 
 
Papa Mali also knows the music of Fats Domino, Ernie K-Doe, Lee Dorsey, and Huey Piano Smith very well.  He knows that these New Orleans artists and many others formed the roots of reggae, and he wants you to know this too!  So he started a serious big band called Shantytown Underground to play both reggae and New Orleans music and to try and connect the dots for us.  This is an “only in New Orleans” kind of thing.  The band is stacked with talent, to the point that we don’t know how they can all be available at the same time – as the members of the band play in The Iguanas, 007, The New Orleans Nightcrawlers, the Roadmasters, and many more.  And during Jazzfest, who knows what other musicians who are reggae fans may be in town to pop in. 
 
We could not be more excited to fly the red, gold, black and green for Shantytown Underground at Chickie Wah Wah!  Thursday May 1st (early morning Friday) at 1am!  Wah gwaan!